Lombardy Wars

The Lombardy Wars (1423-1454) were a series of wars between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The wars resulted in the definition of boundaries between the two nations, in addition to the formation of the Ambrosian Republic in place of the House of Visconti in Milan - shortly after, Francesco Sforza seized power.

Wars
In 1423, the Forlesians were promised the protection of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan, but regent Lucrezia degli Alidosi instead took power and severed ties to Milan. A revolt overthrew her, causing the Republic of Florence to declare war on Milan. The first battle of the war was the Battle of Zagonara on 28 July 1424, where Milanese condotierro Angelo della Pergola defeated Florentine condotierro Carlo Malatesta. The defeat of Florence encouraged the Republic of Venice to join the war and aid Florence against the territorial ambitions of Milan.

Condotierro Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola took command of the League's forces in the war against Milan, and Parma and Montferrat invaded Lombardy from the east to defeat the Milanese in the 1420s. In 1431, when the Republic of Genoa declared war on Florence, the Papal States under the Venetian Pope Eugene IV allied with the anti-Milanese alliance. The League's army was first beaten at Soncino on May 17, 1431, while Luigi Colonna defeated the Venetians at Cremona, Cristoforo Lavello pushed back the Montferrat troops, and Piccinino established strong positions in Tuscany. Another source of dismay for the revived League was the destruction of the Po Fleet under Niccolò Trevisani near Pavia on June 23. In 1431 Visconti also found a precious ally in Amadeus VIII of Savoy in exchange for his help against John Jacob of Montferrat.

Venice won a naval victory over Genoa at San Fruttuoso on 27 August 1431, but on land Carmagnola, the commander of Venetian forces, moved cautiously, avoiding a pitched battle and raising the suspicion he could have been bought by Visconti, while the latter was also joined by Sigismund who had entered Italy to receive the imperial crown. In the end Carmagnola was suspended; recalled by the Council of Ten, he was arrested in March 1432, tried for treason and beheaded outside the Doge's Palace. In the November 1432 a Venetian army was crushed by Piccinino at the Battle of Delebio by a joint army of Milan and Valtellina, which had been invaded by the Serenissima in 1431. However, on 14 June 1440 the Milanese were defeated at the Battle of Soncino, although Florentine attacks on Milanese cities failed. The wars ended really in the mid-1440s, but in 1454 the Treaty of Lodi ended the wars. Montferrat became a satellite of Savoy, and the Milanese set up the Ambrosian Republic, soon to be replaced by the House of Sforza's rule.